Originally posted by: engineereeyore
Originally posted by: JacobJ
/end thread-jacking by shellofinsanity
what do you guys think about the orignial question?
I'll restate what I said before, that I don't believe any government body or instutition should be able to enforce/coerce religious attendance upon anyone. Perhaps as a suggestion, especially with organizations such as AA, but they shouldn't be able to force such participation.
However, I do have a question for those who have posted so far. This is honestly just a question, so no bashing needed. I've always thought that many countries/nations do have a majority of their laws based upon some type of religion dogma, or set of ideals. Even those listed previously (English, Roman, Italian, Egyptian) were very strong nations as far as religion is concerned. Not necessarily Christian, but definitely religious. And many of there laws were based off the religion their country practiced.
Is this incorrect? I'm sure we have some History buffs here, so someone could answer this. I am honestly not trying to promote the need of religion in government or any of that stuff, I just want to know if I'm way off base on my understanding. Haven't most all major governments based many/most of their laws off the religious affiliation of their country?
It's really very hard to answer your question, because it's so general. It's impossible to paint the history of all nations with a single brush. I'll give you some general background though. Most modern western laws can trace their evolution back to Hammurabi's Code, so it's the most useful place to begin.
There is a definite religious overtone to the Code, though it is not Christian in derivation (having been written in approximately 1780BC). At the time of the writing Babylon (where Hammurabi ruled) was polytheistic and practiced an evolution of Summerian polytheism (as was Assyrian btw). Good works were not, generally speaking, to be rewarded by dieties. Death resulted in transition to the bleak underworld; no paradise awaited them.
There is a fairly well explored anthropological argument that many polytheistic religions can trace their evolution from mortal beginnings in tribal society; in other words, their religion is the outcome of oral history about their human founders. This is important to keep in mind when attempting to consider ancient religion within a modern religious context. We're really talking about two entirely different beasts.
The Code is not, strictly speaking, the earliest recorded set of laws, but it is the most important for various reasons. The Tigris/Euphrates river valley was long settled by this time, and the growth of city/states had necessitated the need for administrative civic functions.
The ethical foundation of Babylon was humanisitc. This is reasonable given the conditions of life for the previous few hundred years. The city was safety from struggles. The city was stability from tribal chaos. Much of the mythology dealt with the emergence of the city as an ideal. As such, people were essentially thankful for the city itself, and the 'gods' as vessels for it's deliverance. This placed civic existence as centrally important.
It is in this context that the Code was drafted. Hammurabi sought to honor his 'gods' by developing the ultimate civic (NOT RELIGIOUS) code of conduct. Religion was a function of the temple, not the ruler (who by this time acknowledged that he was not divine (merely most favored)). The Code was displayed in administrative areas, not religious ones. The two are seperate (even though the code itself speaks of religion, it is not of nor for religion).
The Code represents immutable law. It is a set of rules that not even the King himself is above. The Code was displayed for all to see, and ignorance of the law was firmly struck down as a defense. The Code established a fundamental split between religion and government (a seperation of church and state). These are a few of the primary impacts of the Code of Hammurabi.
I hope you see why it's so difficult to answer your question. It's not as simple as declaring that something is or is not religiously based. In my opinion (and that of a majority of historians, anthropologists, law scholars, etc) the idea of civic law began with the Code of Hammurabi BECAUSE it was among the first immutable non-religious set of laws completely outside the sphere of influence/control by the temple.
It is from this Code that a majority of western law evolved. And not just law btw. There are references to and inclusions from Hammurabi's Code in numerous sources. For instance, the bible references quite a few portions of the Code (like the whole 'eye for an eye' bit in Deuteronomy). This seems an obvious evolution given the Hebrew migration from the fertile crescent. Point being you could make at least as persuasive an argument (in my opinion moreso) that modern religion derived from civic law, than you could the other way around.